Six legal boundaries involved, only one gets to vote

How arrogant can the Asheville City Council be? Not only do they not own the regional water system, but they want to tell everyone else in Buncombe and Henderson counties that their votes are the only ones that matter?

The truth is, all the water comes from outside Asheville city limits and involves six legal entities: Buncombe County, Asheville, Biltmore Forest, Woodfin, Henderson County and Mills River.

In fact, 60 percent of the people on the “Asheville water system” live outside the city limits! More bullying, attempting to control the region and telling folks outside the city they’re not important. Typical for Asheville.

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“1. 50% of Henderson County will be served by the merged water system.”

Since you’ve already volunteered that you are plugged into Tim Moffitt’s campaign, thanks for confirming that the plan is to grab not only the water system of the City of Asheville, but also the water system of the City of Hendersonville. This is the only way that a “merged water system” could possibly serve “50% of Henderson County”.

Funny, that never really came up during the “Study Committee”, that Hendersonville would be jammed into a forced marriage with Asheville. We’d heard rumors, of course, but this is the first time someone close to Tim Moffitt has confirmed that this is the plan.

Somebody better tell MSD to include that in their “study”. Oh wait – under questioning, they recently dropped Hendersonville from the list of systems they are “studying”. No matter. The Borg, I mean the GOP-controlled “merged water system”, will assimilate them anyway.

The main subject of my conversation with Rep. Moffit today was the fate of the Woodfin Water District. (I appreciate that it only took me leaving 3 messages for him to call me back. He is responsive, I’ll give him that.) I asked him what the plan or timetable was for merging the WWD with the new MSD.

He claimed that there was none. I told him that this surprised me, since unlike Asheville, Woodfin can, and in some instances does, charge higher rates to those outside the disrtict that to those that are “in-district”.

He also seemed fairly surprised to learn that, unlike Asheville, the Woodfin Water District does not provide water to commercial and industrial customers at a discounted rate compared to single family residences. (FYI- Asheville, even after the rate increase that supposedly had the business community blowing up Moffit’s phone, still charges commercial and industrial customers LESS than it does single family residential customers.)

I asked if he would introduce legislation to remedy this and include the Woodfin Water District in the Asheville Water/MSD merger. I also suggested that the region might be better served if Weaverville and Black Mountain were also include in this as well. He was non-committal.

He did, though, seem pretty hip to the idea of merging the Asheville and Buncombe Co. governments, a la Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Hmm. Maybe that’s what we can look forward to in his second term.

This has become a favorite tactic of those on the right. Lie, lie, lie, then when called on the lie, repeat the lie.

Also, Mr. or Ms. Dai (I don’t presume to know which.), are the readers of the Mountain Express to presume that the Asheville City Council has the authority to hold a county wide or regional referendums if they were only humble enough to do so? Don’t be daft.

Barry, since Tim Peck has failed to refute claims that he is working for Representative Moffit, I asked him myself today. Moffit denied that either Micheal Mueller or Tim Peck are PAID representatives.

I’m sorry I compared “the Borg” to the GOP effort to steal municipal water systems. It’s not a fair comparison.

One is a heartless, dehumanizing juggernaut that seeks only to grab power and technology in it’s quest to dominate the galaxy, leaving ravished and desolate planets in their wake, and the other is a fictional TV alien species.

My profound apologies to those offended by the statistics I provided in my letter to the editor about the source of water feeding the regional water system. In my letter, I said that “some 60% of the people on the Asheville water system live outside the city limits.” I was misinformed and admit that this percentage is wrong! According to the Operations Manager of the Asheville Water System, the correct percentages of water users are: Inside 63%; Outside 37%.

Meiling Dai seems to also be “misinformed” as to how local governments work. Asheville has absolutely no authority to hold a referendum that is open to even ONE person who lives outside the city limits of Asheville.

Dai must be “misinformed” too about the meaning of the word arrogant. The true arrogance in this situation has been shown by TIM MOFFIT, who, after winning 1 seat in the state legislature by just over 3000 votes, now thinks he has a mandate to speak for, and make decisions for the whole region.